


Reflektor

by BitterBlathers



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, I MEAN TECHNICALLY, Kingdom Hearts III Spoilers, M/M, Oneshot, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, be still my akusai heart i've been writing small snippets of this since before kh3 came out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:48:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23693407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BitterBlathers/pseuds/BitterBlathers
Summary: Lea and Isa. Axel and Saïx. Lea and Saïx. Lea, alone with the past. Saïx, alone with the present.
Relationships: Axel & Saïx (Kingdom Hearts), Axel/Saïx (Kingdom Hearts), Isa & Lea (Kingdom Hearts), Isa/Lea (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36





	Reflektor

Sometimes when they were kids, the two of them would sneak out and find a small spot, quiet and tucked away, and Isa would stare up into the moon for hours, gaze unmoving as Lea would fidget and play with matches. He didn’t mind the quiet, it was just difficult for him to sit still, but it was peaceful. Before they turned home, Isa would always turn his stare on Lea and tell him secrets that he could see in the waxing and waning of the nighttime moon. 

It was on a night like this that Isa abruptly turns to face Lea, gaze falling from the moon- the sky clearer tonight than it’s been in weeks, and it’s enough to catch Lea’s attention. Isa’s solemn gaze is tense, and Lea gets a very odd feeling. They’re set to start their tenure as apprentices tomorrow, searching for Subject X. Isa won’t tell him a thing that night aside from _please don’t forget me._

Lea is very confused, and concerned, and also vaguely nervous because he knows that when Isa divines from the moon, when the moonlight beckons to him and makes his skin itch, that it’s _important_ and he’s never been wrong yet, so even though Lea doesn’t understand, even though he can’t imagine them at odds, he doesn’t hesitate in trusting Isa.

Nearly a decade later, as Axel bursts in a firework of desperation and betrayal, his last thoughts as he whispers into ash are of a heartbeat and that last night under the moon.

* * *

Saïx was first born under a shining moon. As Isa was torn away from the blood-slicked floor of the laboratory he awoke in, face aching, he could barely listen to the droning instructions but to ask for Lea. He clearly remembered them dying together- and yet there he was, alone and cold. When the Superior finally stopped talking, the dead silence of the room proves the point for him- his very heart hollow and missing. It felt like hours until Lea- _Axel_ had been brought to join them as well. They stumbled through the next few weeks nothing but hollow, dazed husks, relearning how to navigate limbs they had been torn from as the apprentices, already turned, mocked their naivety. How foolish they were, to think they could rescue Subject X with such ease, spirit her away with no consequences like knights in shining armor. 

Being reborn a second time was nothing like the first. His first thought is wonder at his heart, beating so loudly he can hear it pulsing uncomfortably in his ears. He thinks of the eerie glow of the sham Kingdom Hearts that the Organization had collected- his plea for a heart of his own as he collapsed and in death went back to darkness. _Kingdom Hearts, where is my heart?_ Right here, he realizes, grabbing his chest at the now-foreign sensation. 

He glances over and sees the majority of the Radiant Garden research team collapsed alongside him, sees Axel on the floor (or is he Lea, now?). He doesn’t let himself hope, as the recusant’s sigil on his face burns he feels the power slithering through him and planting itself even deeper. His heart was never strong enough, not like Lea’s. He folds to the shackles once again, his heart nothing but a prison. He decides to keep the name Saïx in this life, as well. It’s easiest to pretend nothing changed at all. 

* * *

Lea thinks about the promise a lot, when he’s Lea again, because as Axel he knew it was important but it didn’t really have the same urgency and weight behind it when they were on the same side. Honestly, it had kind of fallen to the back of his mind until his chakrams locked with Saïx’s claymore, until a betrayal was finalized once again. In the meeting room, Sora a limp, heavy weight under his arm, he once again stared into Xehanort’s yellow eyes on his friend’s face and realized _oh._

And as much as he’d played it off, acted nonchalant and showed off his new keyblade while he played nice with the kids, it doesn’t stop the blistering grief and anger in his newborn heart. So once the awe of ‘Mission: Rescue Sora' wears off, and everyone gets over their excitement and clamor over his keyblade and he’s left alone, it starts to tear at him. He’s sent off with Kairi to train, makes amends, and he tries valiantly to ignore his heartache. 

The days pass, and Isa (Saïx?) feels farther and farther away with each one. He stares at a seashell washed onto the seashore, impossibly familiar and pulling at a whisper in his brain. He pockets it and tucks it away in his room next to a faded popsicle stick. He can’t remember why it’s important but he can’t throw it out- the thought sticks in his stomach like he’s missed a step. 

When Kari realizes she was raised Radiant Gardens, Lea’s homeworld it’s hard to dodge her- Kairi seeks Lea out while he’s napping outside in a nice patch of grass, crowds into his personal space, face eager and comfortable after so much time training together. Poking him awake, she’ll beg for stories, pleading “What was it like? Radiant Garden, before the fall?”

He can’t really fault her for wanting to know about where she grew up, but dwelling on the past leaves him feeling sour and bitter and he prefers to lick his wounds alone. But there’s no way around it with her looking at him so curiously, and he does still feel guilty for all that he’s done to her so he talks to her about it. He talks about the fountains, sparkling and cool on hot days, and the gardens, never dry and always healthy and full. He never mentions that he spent his days causing trouble with his friend. He doesn’t speak of the human experiments locked in the castle, a girl with fractured memories and dark hair who doesn’t even have a name. 

Sometimes, in the chill of night, Lea found himself staring up at the sky, looking for answers. His new body was cold. The moon said nothing. One day, Lea had shut his eyes, and Axel opened them. They’re no longer who they used to be, and a decade later found both parts of him waking up alone, Isa and Saïx nothing but cold air at his side. He’d been gone for so long, but every absence is a wound. 

They’ve both lost time that they can never recover, and Lea spends the few sleepless nights they have left bitter and haunted, staring at the same sky that hung over them years ago. 

* * *

Being with Xehanort again is very similar to being in the organization in many ways- but also very different. It’s difficult for Saïx to squash down the grief and guilt when his pulsing heart seems to scream it out with every beat- a constant cry of Isa! Isa! Echoed in Lea’s voice. 

Vexen and Demyx were collected along with him, but as the weeks drone on more and more vessels are slowly collected as replicas become available for them. 

Saïx had heard that Number 14 had been brought back under Vexen’s supervision, but they don’t actually have any interactions until Saïx sees someone very small standing at the edge of one of the pillars in the Keyblade Graveyard one night, gazing up at the sky. 

“What are you doing out here so late?” As he approaches, the hooded figure startles and whirls around, keyblade flashing into their hand, and it really is Number 14, reborn again. Despite Vexen's claims that she’s a clean slate, she stares up at him in defiance, chin high despite her quivering hands, and he sees her face clearly for the first time. It’s not a blank replica model anymore- she has her own face, dark hair and eyes brimming with confusion and fear. She really, truly is her own individual. He is blown away with guilt and disgust at truly facing the revelation. As he meets her eyes, she shrinks away. 

“Who…. am I?” She asks, slowly. “Why am I here?” Her desperation is one that he suspects echoes the thought of almost every single vessel here. And yet no one has left. They cannot. 

“Do you feel the way he ties us to him? You’re just as stuck here as I am.”

“I don't understand. Something’s missing.” She rubs her chest over her heart, as if it aches. Her eyes water at the pain, and she gives a quiet whimper as tears spill down her cheeks. Saïx thinks of Axel’s upside-down tears, of a girl stripped bare of all but a title Subject X, and impossibly finds himself crouching down next to _Xion_ and waiting next to her as quiet company until she finishes quietly crying. He won’t tell her it’s alright, that it’s okay, but he can at least give her this. 

He walked into this, eyes wide open, and he’s responsible for his own foolish missteps. She was born into this, never knew a life outside the organization, and yet rebelled thrice as hard as he ever did. Isa was squashed down and locked away and Saïx brushed it away as growing pains, blaming what was jealousy and resentment on Axel and all the parts of Lea that were never left behind.

And yet, they’re both here, tethered like ghosts. Slowly, a plan begins to form. Surely his tether has been loosened enough for this much. He should find Vexen. 

_Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me._

What happens at unlucky number 3? He’s going to find out. 

* * *

Ventus looks so much like Roxas that Lea’s breath hitches when he sees him around corners, hope blossoming and crushing his chest in fresh grief over and over again. It’s a little awkward with everyone except for Master Aqua at first, really, with how eerie the resemblance is. What was worse was Ventus asking after Isa, after their initial meeting. His vague memories of Ventus over ten years prior are distant, but for Ventus it was almost yesterday. 

He can’t avoid how Ventus’s voice rings impossibly familiar in his ears, the way the mannerisms look wrong and foreign on his face, and so Lea avoids him as much as possible. He’s like a walking ghost. Sometimes Lea looks at Sora and wonders if Roxas can see him through his eyes, if he’s really still there. Somehow, he thinks it’s worse not knowing. He can’t bring himself to ask.

Maybe he’s destined to lose everyone he’s ever called a friend. Is it wrong to want a fate other than that? He remembers days in endless orbit, fountains roaring with laughter and sun-seared pavement scraping them as they stumbled out of another half-baked scheme to cause trouble for the sake livening up the monotony. He thinks of days spent in cold, windowless labs, playing at apprenticeship trying to save a lonely girl he’s not even sure exists anymore, having his heart torn from his chest. 

Growing older, heartless and hollow, falling apart, fumbling through the motions and blindly refusing to admit they didn’t know this each other at all anymore. Still they clung to each other, like a pair of leeches behind closed doors, torn apart and starving out in the open. They were plastic mockeries of what they used to be, but they repeated the routine through some semblance of motion, distant and invisible, playacting at having a heart as their own collapsed around them. 

He thinks of that last night they spent under the moon as kids. Maybe that was the true beginning of the end.

* * *

Lea’s on the clocktower when Saïx finds him easily, long since knowing where he went to slack off. Lea is shocked to see him, and it’s easy to swipe Lea’s second ice cream with a pang of something both petty and nostalgic.  
  


“That's not for you!” Lea snaps, and Saïx chokes back a bitter _but it used to be. this used to be ours_ but he lost that right, so instead it's a regretful _humor me one last time._

Every bite lets him pretend they’re teenagers again, but the glare on the side of his face reminds him that he’s not. It burns, feels like it’s searing as hot as the sigil on his face, but as Lea yells and pleads all he can think of is regret that it wasn’t a clean break. 

He wants to stay and sit by Lea’s side forever. He wants to gaze into the sunset and melt away with it until the night rings clear. But he can’t. He’s not strong enough. He pockets the ice cream stick. Stands, leaves, as if it’s as natural as breathing. But his heart aches in bitter regret.

He’s so weak. 

He keeps the stick in his pocket even as he enters the Keyblade Graveyard, Xion following along as Xemnas corrals them off to the side. They confront Lea, Sora and Kairi at his sides, and it is too familiar. 

He taunts and cajoles and nudges Xion, dropping all subtlety as she breaks free of her chains and blossoms and blooms into battle. 

He can’t escape like that. He doesn’t even try. He just allows Xemnas to order him around like a leashed dog while he breaks Lea’s keyblade and stomps on his pride. He just stands there. He’s simply not strong enough. 

Still, as his claymore clashes against Lea’s chakrams, he sees the burning in his eyes and wishes he was. He wishes with his whole heart that he was. How pathetic.

* * *

Saïx fights viciously, glowing and berserk, but Axel _knows_ him, knows him better than he thinks he knows himself, thinks of him every day and every night and isn’t that sad when he knows so little of Saïx at all anymore? So when Axel sees an opening he lunges and does what he promised himself he would do. He’s going to free him.

“Goodbye, Lea.”

Isa shatters into a thousand pieces and Lea’s left with nothing but outstretched arms and dust filtering through the moonlight and a rapidly drying spattering of something that might be sweat, might be blood burning across his skin. His own blood is chilled. He’s cold down to the bone. 

His promise is fulfilled. Roxas burst back in with the force of a ricocheting bullet, Xion is saying their names crying and alive, the fast-paced sprint to the finish of the battle, Xehanort well and truly gone. Everyone is a strange combination of euphoric and exhausted, faces flushed bright with adrenaline with tear tracks cutting through dirt and grime. 

As Sora leaves, Axel just stands with Roxas and Xion. He has a kid practically glued to each side, and he unsurprisingly sees Ventus and Aqua taking a similar pose, clinging to Terra like limpets. It’s as if everyone thinks that the moment they let go, the others will simply disappear before their eyes- and truly, who can blame them? How could he not understand what Sora wanted- throwing everything away just to see his friend one more time? All he can think about is the way Isa glittered out into dust as his heart was finally set free. 

Please, let his heart be free. 

* * *

The color of his eyes, blue for the first time he can remember in over 11 years, is offset almost disgustingly by the recusant’s sigil cutting harshly across his brow and bridge in his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Lea stands behind him, plain-faced and unmarred. They’re both so much older than they should be, even for their young age. Just being in Lea’s presence again, it’s like his heart is singing, and yet even he can’t drown out the guilt and self-loathing chewing away at it. 

It’s too quiet in the room. Without meaning to, Isa speaks. 

“It’s still strange to see you without your upside-down tears,”

“Oh?” Lea leans forward, intrigued. “Do you miss them?” 

“You’re stronger now, you don’t need them.”

“Hey now! Crying isn’t weak- It’s a reminder of your strength for you to move forward, got it memorized?” Lea says, crowding him as he shoves his way next to him at the sink. Isa is pushed and shoved until Lea is crowding his shoulder, both of them stuffed like sardines in the overly small bathroom. He stares at them together in the mirror. 

They’re standing side-by-side. They slot together like they were made for it, something brilliant and charged hanging in the air, as they stand pressed to one another, heartache soothed like a balm. However, Isa can’t help but turn his face away from the mirror in disgust as his eyes once again catch the sigil branded on his face. He couldn’t be free of it, even in this life. He slides his way back around Lea, back into the room he’d been staying in, sitting on the small couch. 

“What’s wrong?” Lea questions, following him, sitting next to him. They’ve been together since Isa woke up, but it’s not unwelcome. Their thighs press together on the couch. Isa stares at his hands, before lifting one to trace the X adorning his face. 

“This scar.”  
  
“Is it bothering you? Hurting?” Lea leans in, worry written on his face. Isa leans back, dropping his hand next to his lap. 

“This is just a reminder of how I sat back and played attack dog to Xemnas and Xehanort both. Of all my failures.”

“Ah, I see.” Lea seems to struggle with something for a second, before taking a deep breath. 

“All of us have done bad things. I think we’re all just grateful for our second, or third, or fourth chance at life- let's just try to leave the past in the past.” 

Isa scoffs, turning his face away. That was ridiculous. “A foolish notion. You can’t pretend it all never happened.” Lea makes an indignant noise and grabs his shoulder to get his attention, and Isa’s hand snaps up to his arm, grabbing his wrist. 

“What, as if I didn’t play attack dog for you? Haven’t done my own terrible things?” Lea points out, irritation in his tone. Facing Lea now, he sees the grimace Lea gives at losing his temper so soon. It always ran hot, even when they were kids. The reminder has him clenching gripping Lea’s wrist tight as he gives out a bitter bark of a laugh. 

Lea’s grip on his shoulder loosens, but as his hand falls Isa doesn’t let go of his wrist, lets Lea slide his hand into the palm of his own as their hands link between them on the couch. An olive branch, of sorts, a quiet apology. They sit for a long time, in silence, just staring. 

“You said you were jealous,” Lea says, quietly. He doesn’t let go of his hand.

“I also recall saying that you wouldn’t get it out of me again.” Isa squeezes his hand gently, a stilted, teasing note to his tone. He can’t quite look Lea in the eyes, but his thumb brushes softly over Lea’s.

“Why didn’t you ever say something?” Lea wonders aloud. Isa sighs, long and drawn out, closes his eyes against the roiling in his gut. Feels his temper fraying. 

“Why would I? I knew something was wrong, and I willingly ignored it until it all fell apart. Look at me- like I said, the proof is right here,” He bursts out as he pulls his hand out of Lea’s to gesture jerkily at his face, anger burning hot and bright, wound pulled raw and tight across the bridge of his nose. 

“Marked from the beginning! An anticipation of all my failures yet to come. It was all my fault and I wanted to burn it all down with how unfair it was. I wanted you to suffer with me! I wanted you to suffer for forgetting me and forgetting her.” Isa finishes with a gusty exhale, turning his face away, swiping irritatedly at his eyes and the tears brimming in them from the burning anger, frustration in his gut. The truth hurts, after all. 

They’re both quiet for another long moment. Lea reaches out to turn his face back to him, to run his thumb under his eyes, wipe the tear tracks away and Isa lets him. Lea’s eyes are damp too, but he’s surprisingly gentle with his next words. 

“I could never forget you.” 

Lea’s hand is firm yet soft, calluses and scars from weapons and wars brushing against each other. He trails his hand to trace Isa’s scar, right to left, up and down. Repeats it backward. Lets it linger as Isa closes his eyes, lets himself try to believe it. His hands are trembling at the thought. His heart is racing. Lea softly sighs before speaking again.

“Our past will always affect our present, but we can’t dwell in it- we have to keep moving forward, to the future. We have a choice now.”

“A choice,” he murmurs, opening his eyes to stare into Lea’s. “Is it really that easy?”

“It can be.” 

Lea’s hand drifts to cup his cheek, and like the ebb and flow of the moon, for as many lives as they have drifted apart they drift back together. 

They softly kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to a lot of music during this, but I thought the most fitting was Arcade Fire's Reflektor.I have no idea how to write romance lmao, but I had fun writing regardless. I wrote lots of snippets over a long period of time and finally tied them all together in one angsty emo fic lol. I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
